Quantum speed limit for mixed states in a unitary system

Abstract

Since the evolution of a mixed state in a unitary system is equivalent to the joint evolution of the eigenvectors contained in it, we could use the tool of instantaneous angular velocity for pure states to study the quantum speed limit (QSL) of a mixed state. We derive a lower bound for the evolution time of a mixed state to a target state in a unitary system, which automatically reduces to the quantum speed limit induced by the Fubini–Study metric for pure states. The computation of the QSL of a degenerate mixed state is more complicated than that of a non-degenerate mixed state, where we have to make a singular value decomposition (SVD) on the inner product between the two eigenvector matrices of the initial and target states. By combing these results, a lower bound for the evolution time of a general mixed state is presented. In order to compare the tightness among the lower bound proposed here and lower bounds reported in the references, two examples in a single-qubit system and in a single-qutrit system are studied analytically and numerically, respectively. All conclusions derived in this work are independent of the eigenvalues of the mixed state, which is in accord with the evolution properties of a quantum unitary system.